Storing and Using Hidden Values

A Hidden Value action allows you to capture/store data in your survey that your survey respondents are not able to see, but can be used for gathering data, storing browser information, and even pre-populating questions later in the survey.

When would I use a Hidden Value?

There are an infinite number of uses for hidden values. You could use it to do any of the following and more!

When you'd like to use them to trigger whether or not pages/questions are hidden

Set up a Hidden Value

Locations for Hidden Values will vary. If you are using Hidden Values to capture URL variables, you will want to add these to the first page of the survey. For any other situation, the page the Hidden Value is placed on will depend on the need. Hidden Values can be placed on any page except the Thank You Page.

Click Add New Action on the page where you would like to add the Hidden Value. This is available on all pages except the Thank You Page.

Select Hidden Value from the list.

Customize your Hidden Value.

Enter a title for your Hidden Value - A good title is important, especially if you plan on including several Hidden Values in your survey.For example, if you plan on capturing respondents' first name, calling it "First Name" will be helpful later when you need to use it for pre-population or reporting purposes.

Most often you will use the field that reads Populate with the following. In this field you can enter the data you wish to be captured and displayed in reports and exports. Use the Select a Merge Code tool to insert specific merge codes.

For example, let's say you want to capture the email address of your email campaign respondents. You can use the Select a Merge Code tool to select Email Address from the Email Invite Fields.

If you prefer to use one of our calculated values, time spent on survey or page or a randomly generated number, select these instead from the Populate with a calculated value dropdown.

See below to learn more about how these calculated values work.

Click Save Action.

Calculated Value Options

We have several calculated value options that you can select as well:

Time Spent on Survey (in seconds) - Place this on the second-to-last page of your survey (prior to the Thank You page) to capture the time that your respondents spent on the survey. If you place this advanced value on an earlier page, it will provide you the amount of time that your respondent spent on the survey up to that point. The time spent on the survey is captured when the page is submitted.

Time Spent on Page (in seconds) - Place this value on any page to capture the time it takes for your respondents to submit the page. Use this to evaluate whether a particular page of your survey is too long. The time spent on the page is captured when the page is submitted.

A randomly generated number - This option will generate a random number within the range that you specify. This number is truly random. This means that the same number may be assigned more than once and, at the same time, it is possible that another number in that range is never assigned. If you are looking for a unique number check out the survey counter merge code.

What can a Hidden Value capture?

A Hidden Value can record just about anything. Along with the value of questions from pages the below merge codes are available within hidden value actions:

Email Invite Data

Advanced

Account

System

Calculated Values

Email Address

Session ID

Email Address

Current Time EST

Time Spent on Survey

First Name

Survey Title

Organization Name

Current Date EST

Time Spent on Page

Last Name

Basic Page Count

Street

Respondent IP Address

A Randomly Generated Number

Organization Name

Total Pages

Suite

Respondent Browser

Department

Total Questions

City

Respondent Country

Home Phone

Edit Link

Region

Respondent City

Fax Number

Close Date

Postal Code

Respondent Region

Work Phone

Question's Pipe Value

Country

Respondent Postal Code

Street

Page's Pipe Value

Public Phone Number

Suite

URL Variable

City

Region

Country

Postal Code

Job Title

Website

Custom Fields (1-10)

Reporting and Exporting Hidden Values

Individual Responses

Hidden Values that you capture in your survey will display within each Individual Response. As you can see below, the Hidden Values for Time Spent on Page will appear wherever they are on the page with the amount of time captured as the value listed.

Reports

Standard Report

Hidden Values can be manually added to a Standard Report. To do so, select the Bulk Edit Elements option from the upper-right section of your report. Scroll to the dropdown menu that allows you to Add another report element and select URL and Hidden Values. Select your Hidden Value via the Add question option, click Add to Report and Done.

Hidden Values can also be added via the Insert Tool by selecting the URL and Hidden Values option.

Legacy Summary Reports

Hidden Values are also available in Summary Reports. To do sogo to Results > Reports > Create Report > Legacy Summary Report. Select the option to Include Open Text and click Create Report.

If you're looking for which Hidden Value response aligns with specific respondents in bulk, we recommend looking into the CSV export.

CSV/Excel Exports

The CSV/Excel export contains all of the raw data of your survey, which also includes your hidden values by default. The following picture will show you an example of various hidden values that have been captured.

Limitation

It is important to note that hidden values are stored only once. If survey respondents back up and change answers such that the value that is stored should change the hidden value will not update. Never fear, though; we have a script for this! Check out our document on Updating Hidden Values if Answers Are Changed.

@Abhishek.kaushik: We do not have built-in functionality to recode open text answers into a radio button question like you describe. This is definitely something that you could achieve with scripting. If you'd like to try your hand at something like this you can learn more about our custom scripting language here:

https://script.surveygizmo.com/help

You might also reach out to our Programming Services team who can do something like this for a fee:

Is there any way in Survey Gizmo to create hidden radio punch question where we can punch the values entered in a numeric box or from previously selected radio question. For example, if we have a Age question as Numeric then we would like to punch a radio question based on the answer provided in it. If the answer provided in the numeric question is 24 then we would like punch 18 - 25 range radio option in it, if we have following answer codes to be classified: